How Much Israeli Money Goes Into Facebook?

Nobody knows how much Israeli money flows to Facebook. As opposed to traditional advertising, which gets channeled through media buyers and ad agencies, most of Facebook’s advertising is bought and sold directly, with the advertiser purchasing space directly from the company. Many small and medium-sized businesses manage their own campaigns, without intermediaries or commission agents.

Google and Facebook derive a combined NIS 500 million in annual revenues from Israeli advertisers, according to the market research firm Ifat Advertising Monitoring. Facebook’s share in these revenues is believed to exceed NIS 100 million, according to industry estimates. That may seem small compared to the two giant companies’ combined global ad take, but Israel represents a particularly attractive, growing - and quirky - market.

Facebook is intent on increasing its ad revenues in Israel, but while some of its marketing is targeted at large, blue chip advertisers, to persuade them to devote a bigger share of their advertising mix to social networks, most of its efforts are directed at smaller businesses – startup companies and Israeli Internet and gaming companies creating products for the global market.

This trend coincides with Facebook’s rapid transition from desktop to mobile devices, the same platform that Israeli gaming companies are focusing on in their application and services development. Naturally, then, most of their advertising uses the same platform.